Mike F

SMB,

You're so danged busy you may not want to hear it, but recommend doing a little bit more to pull your leadership team(s) together. Invite them and families over to your house for a Sunday afternoon BBQ. Invite others who you would like to get more involved. Not as an overt sales pitch - just social. Of course, with your ties in scouting, much of the conversation will drift there. With friendships come more volunteers.

Good luck!

Stosh,

I certainly did not intend to say APL was a "goof-off" position.

Far from it.

In the troop I serve, the first position of any sort held by a scout is within the patrol - Patrol QM, Campout Grubmaster, or APL - none of which "count" for rank advancement, but very critical to help them begin to grow.

The other boys are observing each other all the time. A scout who doesn't take his position within the patrol seriously will not be elected by the scouts (PL/SPL) or selected by the SPL (all others) until he has grown/matured more and showed he is responsible.

Your analogy using "administrative assistant" in place of "assistant" is off target. An "assistant" is ready to step in and take over as Acting Boss running a patrol, troop, or international business. In the adult world, this is more likely to be called the Deputy, rather than Assistant. Nonetheless, it is very different from working to cover the details and make the boss look good.

In the troop I serve, we have two ASPLs - both with distinct responsibilities for planning and executing program and both ready to step in as Acting SPL. Since their responsibilities are at the troop level and involve a lot of independent and coordinated effort, I can understand why BSA says this is a POR for rank.

raisinemright,

I'm not a fan of First Class First Year either. We provide the opportunity and they will advance when they're ready. I haven't met a boy yet who joins scouts for advancement over fun, friends, and adventure.

I'm a little confused by "he was going to get his turn as PL in a couple months"?

Good luck with the new troop! It's a lot of work!!

(This message has been edited by Mike F)

SMB,

I think they did fine in the original situation you described.

Scout was corrected and insisted on flagrant breaking of rules. This wasn't just a case of having a knife in his pocket - you described him pulling it out and waving it at other scouts. This was either flaunting the rules, a threat, or stupidity. All can get you in trouble.

When the father cornered and berated the PL, he would have earned a removal from the group I serve.

APL is simply a learning/growing position. An opportunity for young scout to begin to step up and to be recognized by his fellow scouts as a future candidate for PL or other Staff position.

It's not all about speed to rank -- it's about growing young men.

The Air Force Academy application has a very clear section which asks if you were an Eagle/Gold Scout and if you were a Troop Leader/Officer.

I have also known many adults who strongly believed it had a positive effect on their job hunt. Not an overwhelming factor, but a positive factor which helped.

ScruffyJake,

Great words from Beavah.

I have served two troops who used the two different methods in recent years.

I guess the same-age patrols might work somewhere, but my observation was the youth leadership was very weak in the same-age troop - probably because peer-leadership is the hardest of all. The same-age troop I served switched back to mixed-age. Transition was rough, but troop is growing and healthy today.

The troop I serve now has mixed-age patrols which the new guys join within a week or two. Patrols take total ownership of the new guys. Our retention rate is great - about 75% who join stay active through HS graduation.

In general, I think you'll find the troops with same-age patrols require more adult intervention.

Mike

I promised myself I wasn't going to comment again, but here I am.

Ed,

Like I've said, if it were just the scouts, the signed job description is not very important. You just work with him until he gets it. About 98% of the time, the paper is irrelevant.

However, the signed job description is key when you have a parent appealing to District/Council because junior didn't get credit for rank advancement after 4/6 months wearing a patch.

A lot of leaders have discussed this exact problem in these forums for years. It may not be perfect, but this is a solution that works.

That little piece of paper has saved us all a lot of heartache. After a couple of appeals where the troop's implementation of the program was upheld at Council, all I have to do now is quietly show the paper to parents and tell them junior didn't fulfill his end of the deal, so he's not ready yet, but we'll continue to work with him to get him there.

Now the word's out and parents quit giving me grief when junior needs a little more time to grow to the next level.

Maybe we could do away with the signatures now, but I see almost no downside to having them sign their job description and I know it has been crucial when disputes have been elevated. I would rather spend my one hour a week working with the boys rather than dealing with irrational parents or going downtown to talk to Council.

As for source documents, the TLT syllabus has changed very radically over the last 35+ years since I started teaching it. I think the current stuff is some of the worst and you'd have a very challenging time training troop youth leadership with this alone. We have put together our own program taken from most recent TLT and going back years. It also includes some excellent leadership material from Venture Crew Leader training, NYLT, NAYLE, and the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).

There's a lot to this leadership development stuff and our responsibilities as leaders. Is it really worth going into attack-mode over signatures on a job description?

John in KC,

I haven't heard anybody say it was a one-way deal. I've been careful to say we use lots of coaching and mentoring along the way and there are no surprises. Feedback and teamwork start within boy leadership chain. They involve adults only when can't resolve themselves.

What if I had just said our guys and their immediate boss sign their job description after intial training to confirm it was completed and understood?

Three not-so-quick quick things.

1. The communication part is HUGE! Some learn better by hearing, some by seeing. We do both. And we continually coach, guide, and mentor. No scout is left hanging out there with a forgotten "contract" waiting to get ambushed at a BOR. The only time the written, agreed-upon job descriptions come into play is when in spite of all efforts, the scout is failing to be successful in his position and he (or usually his parents) want to press for him to get signed off from rank advancement anyway.

2. Yes - this is an adult-imposed thing and the boys would no more decide on their own to do this than they would to convene a PLC. It helps the transition of leaders because they all have a written description that fits with structure and operations of the troop and helps the SPL and ASPLs train their staff. After that it's pretty much forgotten by the boys because they're all doing their job, being proactive and creative and trying to push the adults faster. The only time it's really useful after that is when that scout falls short and you're in the delicate phase of giving him some details about why he is not ready to be signed off for rank credit on his POR. And it is absolutely invaluable when parents get pushy and want to appeal to higher authority. If you have ever felt like a scout did not give a job his best effort, but you were pushed into signing him off for rank anyway, you might want to consider this in your tool bag.

3. Yes - we tailor the expectations for some of the jobs depending on scout's current rank. This doesn't apply to line leadership positions like SPL, ASPL, or PL because those guys are in the leadership hot seat continuously and all working to their capability. (My experience.) The ones we tailor are the more ambiguous ones like Den Chief and Instructor. They can be used for rank credit all the way to Eagle and I believe we need to push the guys to get more growth as they climb the ladder in order for them to get full benefit of scouting. For example, a First Class Den Chief is expected at a minimum to assist Den Leader with the meetings and be prepared to lead a fun activity at each meeting. A Life Scout Den Chief is expected to plan and run some meetings on his own with assistance from the Den Leader. The objective here is to give the Life Scout the opportunity to benefit from the same challenging leadership opportunities as he would in other positions in the troop. If he's merely following direction from an adult Den Leader, he will not experience that growth.

Its unfortunate, but a lot of this has really evolved for me over the last decade or so after dealing with unreasonable parents. It usually works to talk to the Life Scout about really stepping it up as a Den Chief to show his stuff and make things happen. Or to a senior Instructor about taking on a bigger role in the planning and execution. Usually when they fall short, you just work with them until they get there. But when parents start running to Council and youre called on the carpet, you better be able to demonstrate how youre not treating junior unfairly.

This adds very little overhead and works for us.

Your mileage may vary.

Wow - some surprising emotions here!

I used the term "contracts" which seems to have led to some imagined legal excess.

They are simply written job descriptions which scout and his immediate "boss" sign at the conclusion of initial training at the start of the term.

I have used them in two different troops for over 10 years and believe they help more than hurt.

I agree when our friend Barry says, Boy Scouting is like the adult world scaled down to a boys size. Real jobs have real job descriptions, real expectations and an agreement with the boss. Nothing complicated about this one it fits on less than a page with lots of white space.

Nothing about this leads to mediocrity. Ive never seen any indication a scout was holding back on his creativity or enthusiasm to do more because it wasnt required based on his job description. Most boys greatly exceed the minimum and we barely glance back at the document.

Who said this was adult run? This program is run by the SPL. He uses the written job descriptions to work with his PLs and staff. The guys plan and execute the program. I dont know what their plans are for the next troop meeting, except that its in general to prepare us for the next campout with a shooting theme. The shooting campout has been a PLC priority for about 2 years and we finally got enough adults certified to support their desire. This is example of PLC pushing the adults past our own comfort zone.

For me, the #1 reason to have written, signed job descriptions (or contracts) is to give you another tool to use when a scout is not meeting the minimum expectations in his position after training, receiving and signing clear expectations, getting continual feedback/mentoring/coaching, and doing everything else the youth and (eventually) adult leadership can do to get him to successfully engage. Sometimes in spite of our best efforts, the scout simply does not keep up his end of the deal.

When faced with a scout who is not properly performing his POR in spite of all efforts to get him in the game, you have three choices:

1. Sign his scout book for rank advancement because he wore the patch for the required number of months.

2. Remove him from the POR as soon as it becomes apparent he is not willing/able to do the job.

3. Work with him throughout his term to seek improvement, but make it clear to him (and parents) that hes not yet meeting minimum acceptable performance for rank credit and it will take more effort/improvement to get to the next step.

Discussion:

The purpose of all this isnt rank advancement its helping boys grow. If we just sign the book, WE are taking the lazy way and not helping the boy get the benefit of the full growth experience. It makes parents happy and saves us the trouble of dealing with unpleasant situation, but its letting the boy down.

I am personally opposed to yanking the boy out of a POR, unless he is in a critical position and the troop is really having difficulty working around the weak/missing leader. Working with SPL, we have had to do this, but its usually more along the lines of convincing the leader he needs to step down because his personal conflicts (school/sports/band/job) make this a bad time to be in a critical position in the troop. I have never seen a boy removed involuntarily from his position and I hope I never do because I think this causes more damage than good.

Perhaps a specific example would help illustrate.

We have a Star Scout who is working toward Life. He recently finished a 6-month term as an Instructor. Our (simplified) written expectations for Star-ranked Instructors is that - working with the ASPL - they initiate, plan, and lead skill instruction events as part of the troop meetings and campouts. This scout helped with some instruction events, but refused to participate in planning and took no initiative. ASPL worked with him. SPL worked with him. I worked with him. He absolutely knew he was not doing what was expected and he absolutely knew what needed to change, but he chose not to. We had enough Instructors to work around him, so we did. At the end of the term, he and his parents knew he hadnt done what was required to make Life and they didnt even bring it up.

What did surprise the scout was the new incoming SPL refused to select him for another position. (Heres where the real growth takes place!) As I explained to the scout and his parents (separately), the scout had squandered his last opportunity and the other boys were pretty frustrated by his perceived laziness. Since PORs only come from being elected by the boys or selected by the SPL, the scout had some work to do to prove to his buddies that he was somebody they could count on. Right now, he does have a job and its called Patrol Member. Its not one that counts for rank advancement, but very important to the patrol and his future.

The scout seems to have gotten the message. He hasnt missed a meeting and was observed to be a big help to his younger Patrol Leader on the campout last weekend. Its when you see them (FINALLY!) putting the pieces together that I know why we are here.

The program works amazingly well when the parents will trust that were working darned hard with the best interests of their son at heart. Its not about rank, its about his growth. The trail usually has its rough spots and boys climb at different rates. We work with them and well help them get through it eventually.

By putting it in writing, the boys and parents all know the expectations are high, clear, consistent and fair. We keep it low-key when a scout misses the mark for rank advancement and just keep working to help him improve.

For those who say this is all wrong and wont be backed up by Council on appeal, you are simply wrong. Ive been down that path a few times when parents demanded immediate rank advancement and pursued their right to appeal. This encounter has never been in the best interest of the embarrassed scout. The troop program has been endorsed by Council because we have a very clear, documented process and an abundance of training, coaching, and mentoring to help the boys grow.

As always, your mileage may vary.

(This message has been edited by Mike F)

Craig,

I don't think anyone is suggesting you let the leader fail without intervention, then hammer him at the end by not signing. But sometimes, in spite of Troop Junior Leader Training, written/signed job contracts with detailed expectations, status checks, counseling, mentoring, etc, a boy will sometimes not step up and serve actively (ie, get the job done). In the troop I serve, he does not get credit for rank advancement and it is no surprise to him or his parents. We don't consider it punishment - we consider it a normal part of a boy learning the concepts of responsibility and leadership.

Whether or not the BoR and Troop Committee are willing to take this action, they should absolutely report to the Troop Committee and the Scoutmaster that they believe there is a weakness in the program which could use some improvement.

evry,

The boy's poor showing in discussion of how he met the position of responsibility (POR or leadership) requirement is very important.

There are two fundamental purposes for a Board of Review for rank advancement:

1. Ensure the scout has properly met the requirements. If he has not, he should be given a plan for properly meeting the requirements in writing and the SM or his designated ASM should work with him on it.

2. Through the BoR process, the Troop Committee is also performing an independent check on how well the SM is executing the program within the troop. When the TC finds problems, such as scouts who have had their POR signed off with unsatisfactory effort/results/etc, the TC needs to document these findings and have a talk with SM about how to strengthen the program.

I have been on both sides of this as a Member of Committee and as SM/ASM (at different times in different troops). It stings a little bit at first, but is a crucial part of maintaining checks and balances in a healthy program.

A SM is busy with many things and it's hard to keep your eye on everything at every level. I value the input from the Troop Committee via their Boards of Review to help me deliver a better program. The hard part for you will be convincing the SM it's not a direct criticism against him, but that youre just following the actual BSA program and are providing feedback to help make things better.

Good luck!

Wow - lots of great, solid ideas here!

We haven't had a Historian for 8 years, but I'm going to talk to SPL about reconsidering.

Be careful about one idea to make the position a year-long. If you state this as a requirement to get credit for rank advancement, you are adding to the requirements which say 4 or 6 months. Scout (likely with parent pushing) has the right to come to you for rank credit signoff after the minimum number of months in the position.

You might have to be a little more creative in how you help the scout develop his skills in this POR to help prepare him for the next level.

Instead consider developing a written agreement with scout on expectations for successful completion of his tour of duty. All the above ideas are great to get you started. After he has done those things and has served 'at least the minimum time', he gets credit. If he doesn't make sure the troop activities in a certain month are documented, he owes you another month of successful completion. I wouldn't sweat a few bumps, but if he's not showing the responsibility to get things done, he's not ready for the next rank.

I would also tailor the expectations based on whether he's First Class or Life. Again, not with intent of slowing him down. Simply to help him grow into the next level.(This message has been edited by Mike F)

We did this for the first time about 5 weeks ago at the request of scout and family.

Where we normally work our way up through ranks, ending with Life, this time we just continued on into Eagle.

Instead of more extensive ceremony, this one just consisted of Eagle Challenge, Eagle Charge, Eagle Oath, and presentation.

My preference is still to do more special formal affair.

I've never met an "Eaglezilla" but more than one Momzilla and Dadzilla!

Something needs to be corrected -- Boy Scouts may not be dual-registered in two troops. They may be registered in a Troop and a Venture Crew (or Ship).

We had something very similar happen a while back. A family joined our troop because they didn't like the program at their church sponsored troop. No problems - no questions. Youngest son joined at 10.5, was immature and unmotivated, and was progressing slowly through his T requirements. No problem - he was enjoying camping and growing. We knew we could keep him engaged and eventually he'd be willing to knock out those last couple of requirements for T.

Dad, however, was very unhappy that son wasn't advancing immediately. The boy wasn't around for a meeting or two in the summer, then shows up for a meeting with his T21 requirements all signed off - SM Conf & BoR included. It was at that point we found out the family's church requires all boys to be registered with the church-sponsored troop, so he was registered in both and just gone to summer camp with the other troop too.

It was pretty obvious the dad had done an end run around our advancement program, but we accepted the situation after discussion. The boy was weak in his skills and it significantly impacted him in the troop for the next 4-5 years. The other boys knew something had happened when he rocketed ahead of the pack and didn't have a grasp of the fundamentals. Although he was theoretically ready to be elected/selected for a POR to work toward Star, it was probably about 3 years before he was elected/selected to his first position.

We run a pretty skill intensive program and this boy never did shine in that area, but he did eventually develop into a delightful, strong, positive leader and earned his Eagle at about 17.5.

We had to do some cleanup work at Council to get records straight. Dad agreed to keep boys registered with church troop as they require, but that would be in paper only and the boys would never get any additional advancement of any form signed off through them without first coordinating with us. Council agreed to ignore the dual-registration issue as long as they never got any more advancement forms from the other troop.

This wasn't the most fun issue to sort through, but all eventually worked out fine.

Good luck, Jet.

We have some solid recommendations for handling the mildew and crud.

Any ideas for re-waterproofing?

First we try to head it off at camp, as others have said.

If not discovered until too late, we talk with scouts and parents about the shortcomings, then come up with plan to help the guys really meet the requirements as written. We tell them they may, but have never had anyone appeal to get MB on technicality and all of our guys have the pride of knowing they earned every bit of it.

I don't get too worked up about it. We're volunteers and staffs are notoriously inexperienced and underpaid. We tell parents before we leave and staff when we arrive that we plan to work hard, but expect to bring home partial merit badge paperwork. It's no big deal. Let the boys have fun and enjoy camp!

I've been in DC this weekend and it's absolutely full of scouts! All I've seen were on best behaviour - thank goodness.

Parade today was awesome!!

Can't wait to get out to Jambo on Wed!!

SS

We loved the parade! Which balloon were you working?

When the troop I serve was formed, they established blue jeans as the troop's uniform pants. (Full-length and in good repair.) It took some getting used to at first. In the sense that "uniform" means "the same", at least within the troop, it is a success. It is very rare to see a scout out of uniform. The pants may not be green with BSA label, but they work. I thought about trying to work them towards official pants for Eagle Courts of Honor, etc., but there are more important things to worry about.

Summer camps being way too easy is something we frequently encounter at a variety of camps. A few years ago, 12 of our guys took advantage of a mountain bike course in their free time one afternoon and all came home with the Cycling Merit Badge.

We work hard to keep an eye on things at camp to make sure boys are getting to complete the requirements as written. If not, we talk to Camp Program Director immediately. If we get words about how they couldn't do xyz because of class size, boat limitations, etc., we simply insist on getting partial cards so the boys can finish up the rest later.

It's much easier to handle it up front rather than later when the scout (and his parents) have a signed MB card in their hands.

BTW - after reviewing the real requirements of the Cycling Merit Badge, they all agreed they hadn't done the requirements and weren't really interested - they just wanted to have fun for an hour or so. Right on - that's why they should be going to summer camp!!

Lance,

You'll get lots of opinions.

We're probably at the extreme end with no expectations beyond get Scout badge ASAP. We do encourage and provide opportunities, however I believe the boys benefit more when they finally wake up and realize they want to advance, so we don't push too hard.

We have 13-yr old Tenderfeet who are there for almost everything and also have almost all of the requirements completed for 2nd and 1st Class, but don't want to take the initiative to finish off the last requirements. They will eventually.

It's working for us. From the last two year groups (groups of guys who aged out and graduated from High School), 80% of the boys who joined made Eagle seven years later.

We have a few written things which could be called guidelines:

1. New Parents Orientation not list of policy, just general stuff about how we do business especially as it contrasts with Cub/Webelos.

2. Fund Raising Policy we allow boys to keep portion of any money they earned in a Scout Bucks account within troop treasury. To avoid misunderstandings, we wrote it down. Its in the New Parents Orientation.

3. Leadership Development Process to clarify a few things which apply to PORs, we wrote them down. Most of it was already in handbooks, but most dont read all of those and it was just easier to turn it into a 1-pager. This includes election/selection process of all leaders and our philosophy for leadership development and rank advancement. This is very handy when parents have questions about their son and PORs.

I'll be helping out in the National Eagle Scout Association area, but only for 1 day, July 28.

(Bummer couldn't stay longer!)

This one is a bit more tangled than first read.

I discovered an outbreak of "sack tapping" shortly after taking over as SM of the troop I serve. To my son's horror, I addressed it immediately by name with the whole troop. In short, there's room for some physical fun in a spirited game of Capture the Flag, but keep your hands away from your buddy's gonads. Zero tolerance. Any violators will be going home immediately without regard to time of day or distance.

In PLC (which offending older boys attended), we talked about their responsibility in always setting the example and protecting the other guys. And the cold fact I would hammer them if it ever flared up again.

End of problem.

So far.

Guess we were lucky nobody got hurt and it really flared up.

Good luck to dhendron and company.